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Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Rainbow Honey Sakura Matsuri Collection

Well hey there! Today I've got some great swatches from the Rainbow Honey Sakura Matsuri Collection. I got these from a pre-order offered here on Rainbow Honey's website. It's a set of 5 polishes and with the complete set purchase you also receive 2 cuticle balms. I picked Sakura Matsuri and the Summer Juice for mine. :)

This is two coats of Ephemeral. She's a soft pink shimmer with blue and purple hues, as well as gold, pink, and turquoise microglitters. Very pretty once it's on the nail and I couldn't quite get my camera to capture microglitters because the effect is so faint. I had some application trouble with this one and I'll show you why below. The outcome you see above was achieved using a ELF eyeshadow brush dipped in acetone and lightly brushed over the polish before topcoat to smooth it out.

Ephemeral was super goopy straight out of the bottle for me. I'm sure if I would have added thinner before application, it might have turned out better and I might not have had to take the extra step of smoothing it out. But I'm really not going to be a blogger who doesn't give you the honest truth about products I try, and let's be honest, not everyone knows about polish thinner. I didn't for the longest time either. Overall, it's a pretty polish and I might give it another go after I've had a chance to thin it out.

Two coats of Wistful, a very pretty light kind of golden-green with a pink shimmering microglitter. The effect in this polish and Ephemeral are so difficult to capture, you can see it with your eyes, but for me even with the Super-Macro setting on my new camera it wouldn't pick up. This polish also needed the smoothing method from above before topcoat as it was pretty thick.

I think this one's going to need thinner also before I use it again. I'm not totally against using thinner. But I can't see the need to use it on a brand-new polish. No biggie it's still pretty!

This is one coat and some dabbing of the collection's namesake, Sakura Matsuri over Ephemeral. Sakura Matsuri has pale pink and white flowers and holographic glitter. Can you see the sparkles in the bottle?! Beautiful little rainbows on your fingertips! I didn't really have to fish to get the flowers out and onto the nail either so Sakura Matsuri gets a big thumbs up from me!!

Next up is Hanami. I used one coat over Wistful in the picture above. Hanami is a very pale pink shimmery base with rose, pink, white, and iridescent glitters. I probably could have chosen a better base to showcase the white glitters more, but I was really trying to see how well all the colors worked together in this collection. I know for me it's a pain to invest in a collection and then you spend more time trying to figure out what else you can pair it with out of your stash since most collections individual polishes don't end up working well with each other.

Now for the one I was the most excited to try! This is 2 coats and some dabbing of Koi Pond over just base coat. These glitters in black, silver, blues, greens, orange, and turquoise really do give the sense of a Japanese Koi Pond. I really like the balance of the glitters, especially the orange, it really does look like a bright orange Koi swimming beneath murky pond waters.

Finally since Koi Pond is mostly meant to be a layering polish, I put one coat over L'Oreal's Greycian Goddess. With so many different glitters in the polish, you'll have so many options as to what you can potentially layer it over.

I will say overall I'm in love with the glitters in this collection. They applied wonderfully and you can tell there was thought behind the combinations in the glitters chosen. I do really like Ephemeral and Wistful, but the shimmering effect just doesn't quite do it for me. They're very faint but still pretty. The application with them wasn't the greatest but something I guess I can deal with.

This collection retails for $50.00 plus shipping at Rainbow Honey's online shop. You can also check out Rainbow Honey's FB page here and stay up-to-date with the shop's news and updates.

I have had a bottle of Ephemeral for several months and it is one of my go to colors. I have never had an issue with it being goopy or thick. However the bottle of Wistful I received the other day required quite a bit of thinner to make it usable.

Unlike ever other review I have read I do have to fish out the flowers from my bottle of Sakura Matsuri but I think that is because I bought a mini bottle rather than a full size one. Not that it matters I love it on even without the flowers.